Ever have a moment, when you’re watching a team play, when you have the following thought: “We might have something special here.”?
I’m afriad to say this, of course, because I might jinx it, but I had that thought this weekend, after three straight extra inning wins in our sweep over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Three games, three different guys driving in the winning run. How cool is that?
First, Matt Adams delivers the win with a two out single, driving in Jon Jay. The Pirates actually walked Matt Holliday to get to Adams, which turned out to be a big mistake. Never under-estimate “Big City.”
Then, in the second game of the series, Matt Carpenter hit a sacrifice fly to score Pete Kozma. This happened *after* Peter Bourjos doubled, but was picked off trying to steal third. The Cards could’ve given up on the inning there, but instead they picked themselves up. Kozma singled, followed by Jon Jay, then Carp delivering the winning blow on the aforementioned sac fly.
Finally, in the final game of the series, we had our most dramatic win yet. The Cards were winning this one, going into the 9th, but Trevor Rosenthal blew the save, allowing the Pirates to tie the game. then in the 12th inning, the Pirates took the lead, 2-1 on a Pedro Alverez solo homer. The Cardinals tied it in their half with a bases loaded single by Peter Bourjos, then won it in the 14th innings on a solo blast by Kolten Wong.
Wow. Just wow.
After Adam Wainwright got injured and was lost for the season, the Cardinals could’ve let themselves get depressed and worry about the rest of the season. He is our ace and one of the team leaders, after all. Instead, they picked themselves by the bootstraps, and are adapting to life without him quite successfully.
As I said, something special.
As always, thanks for reading.